The lantern light wavered as the door creaked inward.
The man who stepped across the threshold was not imposing at first glance. He stood just under average height, shoulders narrow but wiry, the kind of build earned through labor rather than training. His clothes were those of a traveler—woolen cloak patched at the elbows, boots worn thin at the soles, a leather belt pulled too tight around a waist that had known lean seasons. Everything about him suggested someone used to being overlooked.
Except his eyes.
They were pale—an unsettling grey that caught the lantern's glow too easily. Not wide with fear, not narrowed with hatred. They were focused, intent, as though the world had finally given him permission to act.
He held the knife low in his right hand. The blade was short, utilitarian, its edge nicked and dulled from use. Not an assassin's weapon. A tool. Something meant to be trusted.
His hair was dark and unkempt, hanging in uneven strands across a forehead marked by old scars—small, shallow lines that spoke of past mistakes rather than glory. His jaw clenched as he took another step forward, breath shallow but controlled.
"It should have been me," he whispered again.
The boy did not move.
He lay on the narrow bed as though still asleep, one arm resting across his chest, legs relaxed, posture loose enough to suggest vulnerability. Only his eyes were open now, dark and steady, tracking the man's every motion.
"Me," the man continued, voice trembling—not with fear, but with something closer to grief. "They talked about you like you were… like you mattered."
He advanced another step.
The floor creaked beneath his weight.
The knife rose.
"I passed through this place first," he said. "I helped them. I bled for them. And when you came—"
He lunged.
The boy rolled just as the blade plunged down, the mattress tearing with a sharp hiss as steel met cloth. Wood splintered where the knife buried itself, lodging deep enough that the man had to wrench it free with a grunt of effort.
The boy was already on his feet.
Up close, the contrast between them sharpened.
The boy was taller—lean, hardened, his frame carrying a tension that came from constant motion rather than comfort. His skin bore the marks of travel and exposure, permanently sun-worn, as if the world itself had tested him and found him worth keeping. Strands of grey threaded through his brown hair, subtle but undeniable, catching the lantern light in a way that made his age difficult to place.
His eyes—those were worse.
They were not cruel.
They were assessing.
"You attacked me," the boy said quietly, voice even, unraised. "But you're not angry."
The man's breath hitched.
"You don't get to decide that," he spat, swinging again.
This time the boy caught his wrist.
The impact was dull, controlled. No wasted motion. His grip was firm but not crushing, fingers locking around tendon and bone with practiced precision. The man gasped as the strength difference became undeniable.
"You didn't come here to kill me," the boy continued. "Not really."
The knife clattered to the floor as the man's grip failed.
"You came because someone told you that you should have been me."
The words landed like a blow.
The man froze.
For just a heartbeat, his eyes flicked—not toward the boy's face, but past him. Toward the far corner of the room, where the shadows pooled thickest beneath the rafters.
The boy noticed.
That was when he felt it.
Not a presence pressing against the air.
Not mana, or killing intent, or distortion.
A leaning.
As though something unseen had tilted the world slightly, encouraging imbalance.
The man tore his arm free and stumbled back, clutching his wrist. His face twisted—not with pain, but with humiliation.
"They look at you like you're the answer," he hissed. "Like you belong wherever you stand."
The lantern flickered.
The shadows deepened.
"You don't even try," the man continued, voice cracking. "You don't smile. You don't promise anything. And they still choose you."
The boy did not deny it.
Instead, he asked, "Who told you to come here tonight?"
Silence.
The man's gaze dropped.
Then—quietly—he laughed.
"I thought it was my idea," he said. "That's the worst part."
Something shifted in the darkness.
Not movement.
Alignment.
The boy released a slow breath.
So this was how it began.
Not with monsters.
Not with divine wrath.
But with people—ordinary, overlooked, quietly aching people—made to believe that someone else's existence had stolen what should have been theirs.
The boy stepped back, giving the man space.
"I won't kill you," he said.
The man's head snapped up. "Why not?"
"Because if I do," the boy replied, eyes drifting once more toward the shadows, "you'll get what you want."
The lantern flame wavered again.
And somewhere just beyond sight, something patient adjusted its grip on the world—already preparing the next comparison.
The man's laughter thinned until it broke apart entirely, leaving only breath dragged unevenly through clenched teeth.
"You think I want to die?" he asked again, quieter now, as if the question frightened him. His grip tightened around the knife, knuckles whitening, the blade trembling not from fear—but from hesitation. "That's not what this is."
The boy did not answer.
He studied the man in silence, letting the moment stretch. Lantern light revealed details the shadows could not hide: a face worn beyond its years, lines carved by disappointment rather than age. His hair was a dull brown, cropped unevenly as if cut by his own hand. His clothes were practical but threadbare—patched at the elbows, stained at the hem with old mud and newer blood. A traveler's build, lean from necessity rather than training.
Someone who had survived.
Someone who had never been seen.
The lantern flickered again.
This time, it did not fully recover.
The flame bent sideways, casting warped light that refused to settle. Shadows pooled unnaturally along the corners of the room, clinging to the edges of furniture like damp mold. The walls seemed closer now, the ceiling pressing down just enough to make breathing feel deliberate.
The boy felt it unmistakably.
This was not mana pressure.
This was attention.
"You hear them, don't you?" the man said, voice spilling faster, losing the careful edge of intent. His eyes darted, never resting, as if afraid to stay still long enough to be judged. "When they talk about you. When they whisper your name like it means something."
He laughed again—short, sharp, almost hysterical.
"They don't whisper mine."
His gaze snapped back to the boy, burning with something raw and unfiltered.
"So tell me," he demanded. "What did you do? What did you give them that I didn't?"
The boy shifted his weight slightly, boots scraping softly against the wooden floor. Even that small sound felt loud in the thickened air.
"I stayed alive," he said.
The answer landed like a wrong note.
The man recoiled as if struck, stumbling back a step. His heel caught on a loose board, and for a moment he nearly fell. The knife dipped, then rose again—but without direction.
"That's it?" he spat. "That's all?"
His voice cracked on the last word.
The shadows followed him as he moved.
Not chasing.
Aligning.
They wrapped around his outline, darkening, clinging to his silhouette like a second skin. His shadow stretched across the far wall, lengthening unnaturally—taller, broader, straighter than his actual frame. For a heartbeat, it looked almost identical to the boy's.
The man froze.
"…No," he whispered.
The boy saw it clearly now.
Envy was not creating illusions.
It was arranging truths side by side until one became unbearable.
The man pressed a trembling hand to his temple, fingers digging into his hair as if he could physically tear the thoughts out.
"I walked the same roads," he muttered. "Fought the same bandits. Slept in the same dirt."
His breathing quickened.
"I starved. I bled. I did everything right."
The lantern's flame bent again.
This time, the boy's shadow stretched forward, cast long and unbroken across the floor, steady and defined. It did not distort. It did not waver.
"And when I helped them," the man continued, voice rising, "they said I was lucky."
His eyes shone now—not with rage, but with humiliation.
"And when you helped them," he whispered, "they said you were meant to."
The shadow behind him shifted.
Its face twisted, rearranging itself—not smoothly, but in jagged fragments—until it wore his features. The expression it mirrored was worse than anger.
It was yearning.
The man sucked in a sharp breath and staggered back again, as if trying to escape his own reflection.
The boy moved.
Not toward the man—but toward the wall where the shadow writhed. As he stepped into its reach, the warped silhouette resisted, shuddering violently, ripples tearing through its outline like disturbed water.
"So this is how you work," the boy said calmly. "You don't replace people."
The air tightened.
"You measure them."
The resistance grew sharper, colder. The lantern guttered, flame thinning to a near thread.
"You show them a comparison," he continued, "and let the difference destroy them."
A whisper brushed the edge of his awareness—not sound, not thought, but suggestion shaped like certainty.
Why shouldn't it have been him?
The boy ignored it.
He turned back to the man, who was breathing hard now, sweat slicking his brow, eyes unfocused as if trapped between two versions of himself.
"You weren't chosen instead of me," the boy said. "You were noticed differently."
"That's the same thing!" the man shouted, though the words rang hollow even to him.
"No," the boy replied. "It isn't."
He stepped closer.
Up close, the contrast became impossible to ignore. The boy's frame was lean but coiled, every movement economical, controlled. His hair—dark, threaded faintly with premature grey—fell around eyes that no longer searched for approval. His skin bore the marks of sun and wind, of time lived too fast.
The man, by comparison, looked unfinished.
Not weak.
Unrecognized.
"You think I was given something," the boy said evenly. "But everything I have, I took because no one else was left to do it."
The man's jaw trembled.
The shadows behind him tightened, sharpening like blades, pushing inward—urging.
Take it.
Take his place.
The boy felt it then.
A cold thread sliding between heartbeats.
Envy had stopped observing.
It was adjusting the scale.
The man lurched forward suddenly—not attacking, not deciding—just pulled. His fingers twitched, curling as though grasping at something invisible.
"I just wanted them to look at me," he whispered.
The knife slipped from his grasp and clattered softly to the floor.
The boy's eyes hardened—not with anger, but with resolve earned through repetition.
"They did," he said. "Until someone told you that wasn't enough."
The lantern flame collapsed inward, flaring violently before stabilizing at half its size.
The shadows peeled away from the walls, withdrawing not in defeat—but in satisfaction.
And for the first time since entering the village, the boy felt it clearly.
Not a presence above.
Not a monster beyond.
But something standing between people.
Watching.
Comparing.
Feeding.
A pressure settled behind his eyes, cold and patient.
Envy had stepped onto the board.
And it had decided this was no longer a test.
The man sank to his knees.
Not in surrender.
Not in prayer.
He folded inward like a structure that had finally realized one of its pillars had never been real.
The knife lay between them, harmless now, its dull metal catching the lantern's weakened glow. The boy did not move to kick it away. He did not need to. The threat had already changed shape.
Around them, the room seemed to breathe.
Wood creaked—not from settling, but from strain. The shadows that had withdrawn did not vanish; they thinned, stretched, clung to corners and seams like something waiting to be called back. The pressure behind the boy's eyes sharpened, not painful, but intrusive—like fingers pressing lightly against his thoughts, testing where they might slip in.
Envy was close now.
Not manifest.
Not attacking.
Listening.
The man pressed his palms to the floor, shoulders shaking. His head bowed low, hair falling forward to hide his face, but his voice carried clearly—raw, scraped down to something unguarded.
"Do you know," he said quietly, "what it's like to do everything right and still be forgettable?"
The question wasn't meant for an answer.
The boy stayed where he was, posture relaxed but alert, eyes never leaving the man. Lantern light traced the lines of his face—too sharp for his age, too composed. The faint grey threaded through his dark hair caught the glow like frost.
"I watched them cheer for you," the man continued. "Not tonight. Before. Other places. Other names."
His fingers curled, digging into the wood until his nails bent.
"They talked about you like you were inevitable."
He laughed weakly, breath hitching. "Like the world was waiting for you to show up."
The shadows behind him stirred again.
This time, they did not form his shape.
They formed the boy's.
It rose along the far wall—taller than life, straighter, its outline crisp and unmistakable. Where the boy stood solid and real, the shadow version seemed heavier, denser, as though gravity itself preferred it.
The man looked up.
And saw it.
His breath caught painfully in his throat.
"…That's not fair," he whispered.
The shadow tilted its head.
Not mirroring the boy.
Mirroring the man's expectation.
Envy did not lie.
It selected.
The boy felt it then—not as a voice, not as temptation—but as alignment. The air subtly rearranged itself so that every angle emphasized difference. The distance between them stretched without changing length. The silence thickened around the man while leaving the boy untouched.
A scale had been set.
"You think I wanted this?" the boy asked quietly.
The man flinched, eyes snapping back to him.
"You think I wanted to be measured against everyone I pass?"
The shadow twitched.
The boy stepped forward.
The floorboards did not creak under his weight. His presence seemed to settle the space instead of disturbing it, like a stone placed carefully rather than thrown.
"I don't get praised," he continued. "I get watched. I don't get gratitude—I get expectations."
He stopped a few steps away, close enough now that the man had to tilt his head back to look at him.
"And when I fail," the boy said, voice steady, "people don't forgive it. They wait for it."
The man's eyes searched his face desperately, as if hunting for a crack. "Then why are you still standing?"
The question trembled with accusation.
The shadows leaned in.
The boy's answer came without hesitation.
"Because no one else will."
The lantern flared suddenly—bright, sharp—and the shadows recoiled as if struck.
The pressure behind the boy's eyes intensified.
Not attacking.
Provoking.
The man gasped, clutching his chest as if something had tightened around his ribs. His expression twisted, emotions colliding—envy, shame, admiration, hatred—until none of them could stand alone.
"I could have been you," he said hoarsely.
The shadow behind him reshaped again.
This time, it showed him—but taller, straighter, eyes harder, posture confident. A version of himself that stood exactly where the boy now stood.
Perfectly aligned.
The illusion was flawless.
Except for one thing.
It did not move on its own.
The boy watched the false image carefully, then spoke.
"No," he said. "You couldn't."
The words landed softly.
They devastated anyway.
The man choked, a sound torn from his throat, half-sob, half-snarl. "Why not?!"
"Because you're still asking why," the boy replied.
The illusion flickered.
The shadow behind the man shuddered violently, edges fraying as if cut by unseen blades. The pressure in the room spiked, sharp enough to make the lantern's glass crack with a dry, brittle sound.
That was when Envy reacted.
Not with rage.
With correction.
The man's breathing steadied unnaturally. His trembling stopped too suddenly. He straightened, movements smoothing out as if guided by invisible hands. When he looked up again, his eyes were no longer unfocused.
They were clear.
Too clear.
"I don't need to be you," he said, voice calm, stripped of its earlier desperation. "I just need you gone."
The knife lifted from the floor.
Not thrown.
Pulled.
It slid across the wood into his hand as if summoned by will alone.
The shadows surged back, wrapping around his arms, his shoulders, his spine—reinforcing, aligning, correcting posture until he stood taller than before. His silhouette sharpened, no longer uncertain, no longer fractured.
Borrowed resolve filled the gaps where doubt had been.
The boy felt it fully now.
Envy was no longer content to observe.
It had chosen a proxy.
The man took a step forward.
Then another.
His grip on the knife was steady now, precise, the stance unfamiliar but practiced—as if muscle memory had been rewritten mid-motion.
The boy's hand drifted subtly toward where a blade could be traced into being. His expression did not change, but something behind his eyes hardened, focus narrowing into something lethal and calm.
"So this is your answer," he said quietly.
The man smiled.
Not cruelly.
Not triumphantly.
But with relief.
"Yes," he replied. "Now we'll finally see which one of us deserves to exist."
The lantern shattered.
Darkness swallowed the room whole—
—and in that instant, as steel and shadow moved together, the game of comparison finally became a fight.
Darkness did not slow him.
The instant the lantern shattered, the boy moved—not away, but into the absence of light. Where others would stumble, he flowed, guided by instinct sharpened through stolen experience and battles that were not yet his but already remembered.
Steel sang.
The knife flashed out of the dark, aimed not wildly but precisely—low, fast, and meant to cripple. The man moved with terrifying efficiency, his body no longer his own in the way it once had been. Envy corrected every hesitation, smoothed every flaw, sharpened every angle until motion itself became accusation.
The blade grazed the boy's side.
Not deep.
Deep enough.
Pain flared hot and immediate, blooming across his ribs as blood soaked into cloth. He twisted away, boots skidding across the floor, barely avoiding a second strike aimed for his throat.
Too fast.
Too clean.
The man advanced without sound, his silhouette swallowed by shadow except for the knife, which caught faint starlight through the shattered window. His posture was wrong—too perfect, too centered—like someone wearing another man's confidence as armor.
"You feel it, don't you?" the man said calmly. "The difference."
The boy did not answer.
He traced.
Steel folded into existence in his hand—a short blade, simple, balanced. It met the knife with a sharp crack that rang through the dark like a bell announcing judgment.
They clashed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times in a heartbeat.
The man pressed relentlessly, driving him backward with a flurry of strikes that left no room to breathe. Every parry came just barely in time. Every counter was anticipated, deflected, punished.
A kick slammed into the boy's stomach, knocking the air from his lungs. He staggered back, crashing into the wall hard enough to rattle his teeth. Before he could recover, the knife drove forward again—
He barely twisted aside.
The blade carved a shallow line across his shoulder, heat and pain screaming in protest. His arm went numb for half a second—long enough for the man to capitalize.
A knee struck his thigh.
Something tore.
He went down hard.
The floor slammed into his back, breath exploding from his chest as the knife hovered inches from his eye. For a split second, all he could see was the man's face—calm, focused, vindicated.
"This is what it's like," the man said softly. "To finally be better."
The knife plunged.
The boy shifted at the last instant, the blade sinking into the floor beside his head instead. He slammed his elbow up into the man's wrist, felt bone jolt against bone, but the grip did not loosen.
Too strong.
Too stable.
Envy reinforced him, flooding borrowed certainty into every joint.
The man wrenched the knife free and brought it down again—
A sword appeared between them.
Longer.
Heavier.
The impact sent a shockwave through the room, splintering wood and blowing dust into the air. The boy rolled to his feet, blade already dissolving as another replaced it—curved, then straight, then serrated—as he adjusted mid-motion, searching for something that fit.
Nothing did.
Every weapon felt slightly wrong.
His breathing grew ragged. Blood dripped steadily now, each drop a quiet reminder that his body was not infinite. The man circled him, footsteps slow, confident, shadows clinging to his frame like a second skin.
"You're hesitating," the man observed. "You don't know what you are."
The boy grimaced.
Maybe that was true.
The next exchange was brutal.
The man surged forward, knife moving like an extension of his arm, carving arcs meant to herd, not kill. Each strike forced the boy to give ground, to react rather than act. His back hit the wall again—this time harder.
The knife slipped past his guard.
White-hot pain exploded in his abdomen.
He cried out despite himself, knees buckling as blood spilled freely now, soaking his clothes. His vision blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in like a tide.
So this was it.
Not a Sin.
Not a monster.
Just a man who wanted what he had never been given.
The man raised the knife, shadow thickening around him, posture straight and final.
"This is where it ends," he said.
The boy looked up at him—
—and smiled.
Not wide.
Not confident.
Just knowing.
"You're right," he said hoarsely. "I've been hesitating."
The man frowned.
The shadows around him faltered—just for a fraction of a second.
"That's because I was fighting you," the boy continued. "The way you wanted me to."
He let his sword dissolve.
Let his guard drop.
Let himself look weaker.
The man lunged, seizing the opening instantly—
And froze.
The boy's shadow surged up behind him.
Not larger.
Not stronger.
Better.
It stood tall and unmistakable, posture flawless, weaponless hands relaxed at its sides—an image of calm inevitability. It did not threaten.
It compared.
The man's breath hitched.
"What—?"
The pressure shifted.
Envy recoiled.
For the first time, the scale tilted the other way.
The boy stepped forward, voice low and steady despite the blood and pain. "You let it decide who you should be."
The shadow behind the man flickered violently, its outline warping, splitting between versions—better, worse, almost, never.
"I decided something else."
The man screamed as the comparison turned inward, doubt ripping through the borrowed certainty Envy had wrapped around him. His grip loosened. His stance broke. The knife clattered to the floor.
The boy caught it.
He did not strike.
Instead, he leaned close, whispering the final truth into the man's ear.
"You don't lose because you're weaker."
The man's knees gave out.
"You lose because you stopped being yourself."
The shadows imploded.
Envy shrieked—not aloud, but in the collapse of illusion, in the violent rejection of the false hierarchy it had built. The room shook as the pressure snapped back on itself, throwing both of them apart.
The boy crashed into the far wall, pain flaring anew, vision swimming.
He was still alive.
Barely.
And somewhere nearby, Envy recoiled—wounded, furious, and now fully aware—
—that the boy could turn its own weapon against it.
The fight was far from over.
But the balance had finally shifted.
The room did not recover from Envy's scream.
It warped.
Walls bent inward, shadows stretching and thinning as if the world itself had begun to doubt its own shape. The lantern light that still clung to the edges of the space dimmed unnaturally, not snuffed out but demeaned, reduced to something lesser in the presence of a power that thrived on disparity.
The boy struggled to his feet.
Every movement was agony now. Blood soaked his side and abdomen, warm and sticky against skin gone too tight, too old. His breath came shallow, uneven. Each inhale felt like dragging air through broken glass.
Across the room, the man convulsed.
He was no longer fully human in posture or presence. His back arched unnaturally, joints bending at wrong angles as Envy reasserted control—not subtly this time, not carefully. Where before it had whispered, now it forced.
Shadows peeled away from the floor and walls, crawling up his legs like living ink. His face twisted, features sharpening, eyes sinking into dark hollows rimmed with something reflective and hateful.
"You dared," a voice layered over the man's own hissed. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just venomously close.
"You dared to turn me inward."
The boy wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and straightened as best he could.
"You made it easy," he replied. "That's your flaw."
The shadows surged.
The man vanished.
Not invisibly—comparatively.
One moment he stood before the boy, the next he was somewhere else in the room, positioned perfectly behind him, knife already descending in a killing arc that left no wasted motion.
Too fast.
The boy twisted—
—and still felt the blade tear across his back.
He cried out, stumbling forward as pain detonated along his spine. The floor rushed up, catching him on one knee. Blood splattered across warped wood in dark, irregular patterns.
Envy did not let him recover.
The man struck again and again, every blow precise, merciless. Cuts bloomed across the boy's arms, his legs, shallow but numerous—death by inevitability rather than spectacle. Each strike carried intent not just to kill, but to prove.
"You borrow," Envy whispered through the man. "You imitate. You trace."
A kick slammed into the boy's ribs, sending him skidding across the floor.
"You are always less."
The boy hit the wall hard, vision flashing white. His sword dissolved as his grip failed, clattering into nothingness. For a moment, he couldn't feel his left arm at all.
This was bad.
No—this was worse than Sloth. Worse than Lust.
Because Envy did not want him dead quickly.
It wanted him convinced.
The man loomed over him, shadow towering, eyes glowing faintly now—not with malice, but with certainty. The knife hovered inches from the boy's throat.
"You see it, don't you?" Envy murmured. "Even now, you measure yourself against what you will become."
The boy's breath hitched.
Images flickered unbidden behind his eyes—steel-filled horizons, endless battlefields, a future self standing alone beneath a sky of broken ideals. Stronger. Colder. Complete.
"You will never reach that," Envy continued softly. "You will always fall short."
The knife descended.
The boy moved—not forward, not back—but down.
He let himself collapse.
The blade missed his throat by a hair, plunging into the wall behind him instead. The man yanked it free instantly, but the momentary shift was enough.
The boy laughed.
It came out broken, half-choked with blood—but it was real.
"You're wrong," he said hoarsely.
He reached inward.
Not for strength.
For truth.
"I don't chase my future."
The air screamed.
Magic surged violently as the boy forced something open that had resisted him since Lust fell. His body convulsed as circuits ignited, burning, screaming, rewriting themselves under pressure they were never meant to endure.
A card materialized in his hand.
Black.
Red.
Cracked.
The Archer Class Card.
The man recoiled instinctively.
"No—" Envy snarled. "Not yet—"
The boy slammed the card against his chest.
Installation did not come gently.
Pain obliterated everything.
His body arched as mana flooded him, bones screaming as they adjusted to a form that did not belong to the present. His vision fractured into overlapping layers—battlefields, weapons, memories not yet lived tearing through him all at once.
His brown hair darkened at the roots—
Then grey spread like frost through it, strands paling rapidly as time carved its mark into him again. His frame tightened, muscles redefined by experience stolen from years that had not happened yet. His eyes sharpened, gaze hardening into something precise and merciless.
He roared.
Not the card.
Him.
The sound shook the room, cracking walls and shattering what remained of illusion. Shadows peeled away violently, screaming as they were stripped of hierarchy and comparison alike.
The man staggered back, clutching his head as Envy screamed through him, its control faltering for the first time.
"You don't get it," the boy growled, rising unsteadily to his feet, blood still pouring, body barely holding together.
"I don't become him because I'm better."
A bow formed in his hand—black and red, strings humming with compressed hatred and resolve. A sword followed, then another, hovering at his back like patient ghosts.
"I become him," he continued, drawing an arrow of pure mana, its edge screaming with intent,
"because I survive."
Envy shrieked in fury, forcing the man forward one last time, shadows coalescing into a desperate, murderous surge.
Too late.
The boy loosed the arrow.
It tore through the room like judgment given form, obliterating shadow, flesh, and illusion alike. The blast consumed the man entirely, slamming into the far wall and detonating in a storm of shattered stone and screaming air.
Silence followed.
The boy stood trembling, bow dissolving, strength draining out of him in violent waves. The Archer card flickered, cracks spreading across its surface as it struggled to maintain cohesion.
He dropped to one knee, gasping.
Envy was not destroyed.
Not yet.
But it had been wounded—truly wounded.
And for the first time since this hunt began, the boy had proven something undeniable:
Comparison could cut both ways.
And Envy had just learned what it felt like to be less.
The night did not end.
But it had finally learned fear.
The silence did not last.
The shattered room groaned as if waking from a nightmare, beams creaking under stress they should not have survived. Dust drifted slowly through the air, illuminated by faint moonlight leaking through cracked walls and collapsed ceilings. Somewhere outside, a dog barked once—then stopped, as if realizing it was alone.
The boy remained on one knee.
The Archer card flickered violently against his chest, its surface fractured with spiderweb cracks that glowed faintly before dimming again. Each pulse sent pain tearing through him, not sharp anymore, but deep—the kind that hollowed a person out rather than cutting them open.
He clenched his teeth and forced himself to breathe.
Too much.
Installing it this way—this early—was too much.
Blood dripped from his fingers, pattering softly against the floor. His muscles trembled uncontrollably now, not from fear, but from strain. The future he had reached into did not reject him—but it demanded payment all the same.
He staggered upright.
Across the ruined room, something moved.
Not the man.
What remained of him lay twisted and broken where the arrow had struck, body burned and torn beyond recognition. Whatever humanity Envy had used as a vessel was gone now, discarded the moment it ceased to be useful.
But Envy itself—
It lingered.
The shadows along the walls thickened again, slower this time, cautious. They did not surge or attack. They watched. From corners. From fractures in the world where light failed to fully reach.
A shape began to form.
Not solid. Not complete.
A silhouette peeled itself out of the darkness—tall, thin, its outline constantly shifting as though unable to settle on a single comparison. Its face was a blur of features that almost matched his own, then didn't. Older. Younger. Stronger. Weaker.
Every version wrong.
"You should be broken," Envy whispered, its voice no longer bound to a throat. It came from everywhere at once, layered and overlapping. "You reached beyond yourself. You borrowed what you are not."
The boy wiped blood from his mouth with shaking fingers and laughed softly.
"You keep saying that," he said. His voice was rough now, scraped raw. "But you still haven't figured it out."
The shadow recoiled slightly.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Each movement sent agony screaming through his body, but he did not stop. Swords began to manifest around him—not fully formed, not perfect—but enough. Familiar shapes. Familiar weights. Traces of battles he had not yet fought, instincts that did not belong to a boy his age.
"You don't understand people," he continued. "You don't understand me."
The silhouette sharpened, anger bleeding through its restraint.
"You live off comparison," he said. "You exist because someone always wants what someone else has. Strength. Love. Recognition."
He stopped a few paces away from where the shadow pooled thickest.
"But I don't move forward because of envy."
The Archer card pulsed again—weak, unstable.
"I move forward because standing still kills people."
For the first time, Envy hesitated.
Not retreat.
Hesitation.
The shadows rippled violently, as if trying to reorganize, to reassert dominance through a different angle. Images flooded the space—visions of other hunters, other heroes, other possible futures where someone else succeeded where he failed.
"You will be forgotten," Envy hissed. "Outpaced. Replaced."
The boy raised his head.
Grey hair fell across his eyes, catching the dim light. His gaze was steady now—not defiant, not hopeful. Simply resolved.
"Maybe," he said.
A sword fully manifested in his hand.
Not a noble phantasm.
Not a named blade.
Just a weapon he knew how to use.
"But I'll still be here until then."
He stepped forward—
—and Envy withdrew.
Not destroyed.
Not defeated.
The shadow thinned, tearing itself away from the room like a stain being pulled out of cloth. The presence receded rapidly, leaving behind only a faint, bitter residue that clung to the air like an accusation never spoken aloud.
The distortion vanished.
The world snapped back into place.
The boy collapsed.
This time, he did not try to catch himself.
He hit the floor hard, breath leaving him in a strangled gasp. The Archer card flickered once more—then went still, its glow dimmed to almost nothing.
He lay there for a long time.
When he finally stirred, dawn was creeping through the broken structure, pale and indifferent. His body felt heavier than ever, joints stiff, skin burning where mana had torn through circuits not meant to handle that load.
He rolled onto his side with a groan.
The box was still there.
He opened it slowly.
Inside, the Rider card lay dormant.
The Caster card rested beside it, sealed and silent.
No new card joined them.
Envy had escaped.
He closed the box and pressed his forehead against the ground.
That was fine.
Better, even.
This was not meant to end quickly.
When he finally stood, leaning heavily on the wall for support, he felt the change settle deeper into him. His reflection in a broken shard of glass showed a boy who looked older than seventeen now—not in years, but in wear.
Grey threaded through his hair more visibly.
His skin was darker, rougher.
His eyes carried something that hadn't been there before:
Patience.
He stepped out into the morning air.
Envy was wounded.
Watching.
Learning.
And next time, it would not underestimate him again.
Neither would he.